270: Unlock Gut Health With The Powerful Prebiotics In These Plant-Based Foods

Speaker 1: 0:58

On our last episode, number 269, we talked about what you need to do to maintain optimal health if your doctor prescribes an antibiotic. Such an important episode. If you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to that now and then come back to this one. But because today we're talking about the three prebiotics that feed your good gut bacteria and how you can easily get more of them into your life.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Let's do it.

Speaker 1: 1:23

Hey sister, welcome to the power on plants podcast. Are you tired of staring into the fridge wondering what to eat so you can just feel better? Do you want to avoid spending hours in the kitchen making complicated meals in the name of health? Would you love to leave fatigue behind and finally have the energy to do all the things you want to do? Hi, we're chair. Then they need to resell Christ followers, health care professionals, parents of four and big fans of great Tasting food. We too, tried exercising more, eating natural and clean foods, but we still found ourselves struggling with what we thought were changes that come with age or bad genes, and we weren't finding answers the traditional route. So we dug into the research and created our secret nutritional weapon Sustainable plant based living. The truth is, you can eat more whole plant foods and it's not hard. You just need the way. That's realistic and delicious so you never feel deprived. If you're ready to enjoy your meals, no longer be held back by your health struggles and actively live your life, then you're in the right place. So grab your favorite plant-based cup of happy pop in those earbuds and let's get started. Hey friends, welcome back. We're so happy to have you with us today. Now, we have been talking a lot about gut health recently. Why is that? Because your gut health is tied to your overall health. We know this. You've seen it a lot out there these days when it comes to your health and nutrition, and so you want to know these little life hacks and these little strategies and things you can do to help you be healthy. If you're wise, you definitely want to know how to steward your body Well, right. God's given us this body that we live in to be able to walk out our mission on this earth. How can we do that if we don't feel good? And our gut health is a big key to this? If you didn't hear the episode right before this one, episode 269 it's really important because at some point in your life, you may go to the doctor and they may want to put you on an Antibiotic. Well, what do you do to keep yourself Optimally healthy during that time when you're taking an antibiotic? That's what we talked about on the last episode, and today we're expanding on something that we started in episode 267, where we told you about prebiotics, what their importance is for your health, and also started talking about one of the first ones that we're going to mention again today, fiber. So if you want to dive deeper into fiber as a prebiotic that you need into your life, you want to listen right now to episode 267. So what exactly are Prebiotics? Let's sum it up. We went into it quite a bit in that episode, so we're not going to talk about it a lot, but what are prebiotics in a nutshell?

Speaker 2: 4:05

in a nutshell a prebiotic is something that we don't digest. We don't have enzymes to digest them and we do not absorb them exactly as they are. These are also substances that the microbiome Uses as food.

Speaker 1: 4:20

They can ferment it, they can use it as fuel to run and when Jared says microbiome, he means the gut bacteria that you have. So your good gut bacteria, the ones that we want to flourish, the ones that help us to Remain healthy, they require food, and the food that they eat is Prebiotics. That's what they eat. So there are three types of prebiotics. The first is fiber.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Yes, we've talked about that so many times, but it's very important. Now, what exactly is fiber? Because we use that word a lot, but do we fully understand what it is? It's metamucil, right? Well, metamucil would be a subclass of fiber, but it's simply just something from plants that we do not digest, so we do not have enzymes to break them down. They pass through us. Now they have multiple benefits One, obviously, feeding our good gut bacteria, and two would be a regular bowel movement, which, yeah, I'm not going to diminish the importance of that, but they do have other benefits, like grabbing on to some of the waste products, like cholesterol, excess estrogen and women. The fiber binds to these things and helps us to eliminate them, so that way, there's this constant flow, so we don't get a buildup of too much of anything.

Speaker 1: 5:29

Don't you find it interesting that when God gives us something that's beneficial, it's not just beneficial in one area, it's so many others, and Jer's just listed a couple of the ways that fiber helps us? I'm sure there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of ways that we don't even know. We don't even know, but what we don't want to do is go out and start buying metamucil and wasting our money and having to force ourselves to drink something that we don't like because it's disgusting and probably has some other things in it that may not be good for us, like natural flavors and colors. When you can get it in the whole plant food, god put it there for you in the foods. So learn how to eat the good stuff and the way that you enjoy.

Speaker 2: 6:08

So our second prebiotic are resistant starches. These are starches that resist digestion in the small intestines. Now, classic examples of that we've kind of touched on this here or there potatoes.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Now you're speaking my love language.

Speaker 2: 6:24

We love potatoes, when you cook potatoes, when you let them cool down. Anita doesn't like this one. One of our sons and myself Okay, hold on.

Speaker 1: 6:33

I got to interject here because I'm just thinking it in my mind Potatoes are my love language. I just shared that right. Well, I have several plant foods that are my love language. Potatoes are one of my love languages, for sure. If potato is one of your love languages, I want you to get inside Pie right now. That's our free community at PowerOnPlantscom. Forward, slash PIE, and I want you to posta picture of you enjoying a potato in the way that you love to eat it most. So just snap a quick pic. It doesn't have to be formed in a pretty manner and laid out with flowers.

Speaker 2: 7:04

No, this is real life A little spark please.

Speaker 1: 7:06

This is real life. You don't need that. Just take a quick picture and show me. I want to see who are my potato pals. Who else is potato one of your love languages? If it is, come in there, I want to meet you today. I like that you are my potato pal.

Speaker 2: 7:20

So hashtag potato pal. Oh, hashtag it. Yes, hashtag potato pal.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Okay, so go to PowerOnPlantscom forward slash Pie right now and do that. That's poweronplantscom forward slash PIE. It might be an old picture of one you took, or if you say I don't have it in my role yet, but I'm totally a potato pal. Anita, make a potato for one of your next meals and whatever you love to put on it, like for me right now. Okay, there's so many different ways I love to eat my potato, y'all. We've got to get our resistant starches. It's so, so important. Right now I'm loving a sweet potato with black beans, a little bit of sauerkraut which we'll talk about that more in the future Salsa, even a little hot sauce I do love some hot sauce, seriously and a little cilantro. If you like cilantro, you know you either love it or you hate it, and I do sometimes like to put a little bit of cashew cream. I don't have to do that when I'm using the salsa, but sometimes I'll put just a little bit of that if I have some in my fridge. So if you're a potato pal, come to powerandplantscom forward slash P-I-E the next time you cook a potato and be intentional about it. Do it within the next couple of days, get in there and post and post hashtag potato pal. I don't care when you're listening to this, if this is a year or two after I posted it. Do the same. Come into the community, post hashtag potato pal, because I check it and I see these things and I wanna know are you my bud? Are you my pal?

Speaker 2: 8:39

Or maybe they're your spud, not your bud.

Speaker 1: 8:45

Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 2: 8:46

We have taken a total departure from our original topic and so what's new?

Speaker 1: 8:52

right, we've left you in this. You've got to have the practical steps. We don't wanna be all sciencey, but we don't wanna be non-science, so you really need to understand these things that we're diving more into, like what are the three main prebiotics and how do I get those that we're talking about today? But when there's a departure necessary and we start talking about resistant starches and we start talking about potatoes, you know I've gotta throw in an easy way to get that in a way that we can connect over it. That's where all the fun happens and it just makes it practical, right? We've gotta know how to practically get these resistant starches. Oh, definitely, potatoes are a great way. Sweet potatoes, purple potatoes oh my word. So now you've got all these different categories of the different ones. So you've got sweet potatoes, you've got purple potatoes, orange potatoes, you've got white sweet potatoes. If you haven't tried some of those, try them. And the purples are real important. We're gonna talk about why in a minute. Then you've got regular savory potatoes and you've got green bananas. Those are a good source of resistant starch and actually I prefer them to ripe.

Speaker 2: 9:51

But before we go too far on to the other resistant starches. I didn't quite make the important point with the potatoes. That when you cook them and they're warm. They're not the resistant starch. It's whenever they're cooled, then the starches they take on the form or they become more resistant to digestion in our small intestines, so then it can make its way to the colon, where they then feed the bacteria.

Speaker 1: 10:13

That's such a great tip so with resistant starches.

Speaker 2: 10:16

they're starches which are really just chains of sugar molecules kind of stitched together, and so we can digest them. But, like the name suggests, they're resistant, so that food can actually make its way to the colon to feed our good gut bacteria.

Speaker 1: 10:30

Right, because if it was broken down and gone there'd be no food for our good gut bacteria. Right, well on the flip side.

Speaker 2: 10:35

It would be like eating something with just simple sugar, so like if you drank a cola that had nothing but just regular white sugar. Because it's just a simple sugar, we just absorb it right away.

Speaker 1: 10:45

So that was such a great tip Jared just shared. You wanna let those potatoes cool before you eat them if you wanna get more resistant starches? Now, we don't want you to one off things here. We don't want you to think, oh well, I've got to just eat potatoes to get my resistant starch, or just eat this kind or that kind, or I need to do this to get more fiber or that. Just eat more whole plant foods. That's gonna be our tip the whole time here. We don't want you to get worried and bogged down like you do when you listen to all these ads and all this health information in there from all the quote gurus that have you worried about I need to take this and that and this, and that there aren't many supplements you need to take, and that's the truth. If you wanna save money and you wanna eat the cheapest way possible and you wanna get the most nutrients and the most bang for your back, start eating more whole plant foods, a variety. It's the most important thing you can do for gut health a variety of whole plant foods on your plate. So with resistance starches, green bananas don't just eat them right. Green bananas, yes, eat them green. I like them more green and actually I've been making this ice cream recently with bananas that are more green, and when I do that I don't taste the banana so strong. So sometimes you eat ice cream and you don't want the banana flavor to come through so much. Eat them green, get them in your ice cream green. It works great. I'm talking about banana and ice cream, right?

Speaker 2: 12:01

Yes, and the longer that the banana sit on your countertop they become more yellow than more brown and the sugars have longer to break down into a simple sugar form instead of being more in the resistance starch form.

Speaker 1: 12:15

Makes perfect sense, absolutely perfect sense. You can do the same thing with cooked and cooled rice that you do with cooked and cooled potatoes.

Speaker 2: 12:22

Yeah, I was just thinking about that.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Yes, Same thing. It's good for you. And then oats as well. If you cook it and then it sits for a little bit and it starts to get a little thicker, that's good. But let's say you're eating cooked oats instead of raw oats today, ain't? You don't mind eating them, cool. And you think, oh, that's great, I'll get more resistant starch, but you think I just don't like how thick they get. Just add more liquid when you're cooking it so that when it cools you'll still have it liquid enough, and then you won't think, oh, I can't eat this. You know it's like a solid brick. You might not want a solid brick of oatmeal. So that's one tip there. But these are just a few of the foods. So don't be worrying about every day I've got to get this thing or that thing or this thing. Just eat a wide variety. You're going to be getting your fiber, your resistant starches and, tip number three, the third prebiotic that you need to be getting are polyphenols. Polyphenols are nutrients in plants, in plant-based foods. They're naturally there. They help your body manage inflammation. They protect against oxidative stress and a whole host of chronic diseases. So how do you get them? How do you spot them in plant food? Look for color. You know I'm always saying get a wide variety of foods, get a wide variety of color onto your plate. That's a great way to vary up what you're getting. If your whole plate is white, you don't have enough color on there. There's a problem with that. Get your greens, get your purples Purples are often missing, filled with polyphenols. So you've got your blueberries and your purple cabbages and your purple onions and all these blues and purples and the reds, like those strawberries. Where there is color, there will be polyphenols.

Speaker 2: 14:02

But also to not just color. They help contribute to the flavor.

Speaker 1: 14:05

Yes.

Speaker 2: 14:05

To the odor and sometimes bitterness. So bitterness in a berry or a fruit may not always be a bad thing. That could actually be a sign of a very high polyphenol content. If you can stand it, not everybody can, so people are more sensitive to bitterness than others.

Speaker 1: 14:19

Bitter is good for you, and when you chew into seeds a lot of times you get that bitterness, but we know that seeds are very healthy for you as well. Plus, you're getting more fiber with the seeds too.

Speaker 2: 14:29

So now, with regard to prebiotics, as with everything that we talk about, diversity is best. It is king. Get a wide variety. There are a lot of supplements out there, and this is one of the reasons why we don't necessarily recommend getting supplements, even for stuff like prebiotics, cause you may have a supplement that has one, maybe two. What they have found is that if you try to take a specific prebiotic, so let's say one called inulin, it's found in things like soybeans sun chokes found in sun chokes. If you try to max out on a specific one, there really is no additional benefit after you get above a certain level.

Speaker 1: 15:05

So let's say you're taking it every day. You're waking up and you're taking your inulin supplement every day. You would just be better off not spending your money on that, buying some beautiful, colorful whole plant feeds to get on your plate and into your body that you actually enjoy, that you drive some pleasure from and it's providing maximum benefit because you're getting all these different sources, all these different types of polyphenols and fibers and resistant starches.

Speaker 2: 15:33

And the reason why I wanted to make this point is that at times we may have this lot of. If some is good, more must be better. I'm just gonna max out on this one and really it's not going to do anything for you and all the different bacteria in our gut and on our body. They eat different foods, they have different prebiotic needs. So by getting a very wide array of different prebiotics, you're beautifully feeding all these different bacteria and it will have the most profound effect positively on your health.

Speaker 1: 16:05

So the main takeaway here is there are three main prebiotics that we know of fiber fiber, fiber fiber, polyphenols and resistant starches. We've covered what those are today, some of the simple ways to get them, but your main takeaway is what? Eat more whole plant foods, get a variety. And one simple way to do that is look at the color on your plate. What color is missing, sister? What color is not there, brother? What are you missing out on in that color family? That's good. I mean you might be eating a brighter plate, but maybe it's all green and you just don't get any. And greens are great for you. You need to be eating your greens, but add in some purples. Add in some reds some blues, some orange, some yellow. Make it pretty and it's going to taste even better.

Speaker 2: 16:58

And it may sound cliche to say, eat the rainbow but seriously eat the rainbow.

Speaker 1: 17:04

Absolutely so. Right now, today, I want you to start noticing the colors that are missing from your plate and as you visit the supermarket or the farmer's market the next time, I want you to look for things that are that color and try something new or something old that you just don't need anymore. Get these colorful, wonderful whole plant foods on your plate. Don't worry about taking fiber supplements. Trust me, when you start eating closer and closer to 100%, a whole food, plant base fiber's not going to be such a concern for you. It's just not. Resistance starches and polyphenols won't be something you need to even worry about. But we tell you these things so that you understand why whole plant foods are so important for you, why these foods that God told us are the absolute best to fuel our body, according to Genesis 1.29. Why is that? He's given us the tools and the research and the information. It's there, it's been in the nutritional research for so long and it just backs up what he's already told us, which he's so great at doing time and again. As you start finding these new favorites, we want you to start sharing them with us inside of Pi, our free community. Go to powrongplantscom forward. Slash Pi. Powrongplantscom forward. Slash P-I-E, join us there and if you're already there, just hop on in and show us on your grocery trip. Snap a picture. Hey, this is what I'm trying Purple potatoes. Look at that. I've never tried these before and you've got it in your hand. It's going into your baggie. Maybe people have an idea of how to use it. You think I'm buying this. I have no clue how to use it. People can give you some simple ideas of what they've already done. This is the power of community. You are going to skyrocket yourself to plant-based joy by being apart. So get in, get active, start taking those steps and, before long, these delicious foods you're going to grow to absolutely love are going to bring you the freedom and energy and full life that you are created to enjoy. Have a great day, sunshine, and we'll see you on the next episode of Power on Plants.